


Safe Here, Only Here

by literaryspell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryspell/pseuds/literaryspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regulus is punished and Sirius can't bear to see him suffer alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Here, Only Here

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the low rating, mind the warnings. Huge thanks go to ultrasonicbop and grander_fic for answering my beta SOS and working on this quickly and thoroughly. ♥

It was because Regulus was supposed to be everything that Sirius wouldn’t be that the younger of the two was now ensconced in the hallway closet. Sirius passed it twenty times, stalking up and down the dark and narrow corridor before he heard the sounds from within.

Regulus. Their parents needed him to be perfect, Regulus wanted to be perfect, and most of the time, he _was_ perfect—no matter that Sirius didn’t want perfect, he just wanted Regulus. No one ever cared what Sirius wanted.

It was an innocent comment made by a mostly innocent boy. At the dinner table, across the wide expanse between Father and Mother, Regulus had reported of a Potions assignment for which he'd been partnered with Rothchild Gennings. A Gryffindor.

Regulus should have known better than to say that Rothchild was good at potions, that Rothchild wasn't pure-blood but he didn’t act the way they'd been taught Mudbloods acted.

Sirius was there to serve as a deterrent, one that should have stopped Regulus from making such statements.

Now, Regulus was in the closet and Sirius was pacing the hall, hearing quiet whimpers from within. Their parents had long since gone to bed, and Regulus was to be in the 'Punishment Room' until morning.

They wouldn’t know if Regulus was let out, if he returned to his own bed and then snuck back into the closet at sunrise. Sirius needed to do something; the door was heavy between them and he couldn’t stand those _sounds._

Sirius grasped the brushed bronze doorknob, wincing as it creaked when turned. He opened the door, the dim light from the hallway sconce spilling into the tiny closet, casting shadows on Regulus like stains on his skin.

"Come on," Sirius said, trying not to see even though he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Regulus would never be handsome, that was true. He was smaller and meaner-looking than Sirius, but though his features were not masculine and attractive in the traditional way, he had a curious sort of androgynous beauty. It wouldn’t occur to most people to call a boy beautiful, but there was no other word for Regulus.

Regulus looked up at him from his corner of the closet, sitting with his back to the wall, bony knees drawn up tight with his arms holding them like they were keeping him together. His grey eyes were wide and red-rimmed, his lips and nose both rubbed raw—Regulus hated crying, and he would swat so angrily at the tears that weakened him.

"No," Regulus said, shaking his head. "I'm being punished."

Sirius edged closer. He'd spent too much of his childhood in the closet to relish going back in, but he would if he had to—if Regulus needed him to.

"You don't deserve it, Regulus. You didn’t do anything wrong." Sirius was a Gryffindor, and Regulus was being punished just for talking to one, for thinking that he might be a friend. Their parents had long since stopped encouraging the brothers to be close, but Sirius would never stop loving Regulus. For so long, they'd been everything to each other—Regulus had worshipped him.

Then the newspaper clippings had torn them apart. Regulus' little hobby meant some day he would die with his body defiled by the brand of a despot.

"I did, though. I was wrong." Regulus frowned into his knees, seeming to know that repeating his parents' words didn’t make them true, but he couldn’t be sure how to think for himself.

A muted sniffle made up Sirius' mind. He stepped into the scant space of the closet and shut the door. Neither would be able to open it. And when their parents found Sirius there come morning, he would be punished much worse than Regulus. Much, much worse. But if he could get Regulus to stop crying, it would be worth it.

In the closet there was an old wand, barely functional. Sirius had pilfered it from one of the many boxes in the attic, filled with the relics of dead ancestors. He kept it in the closet, never knowing when he might find himself there again. In the dark, Sirius rooted around, his fingers brushing against Regulus' bony ankle before landing on the thin, slivery wood.

"What are you doing?" Regulus hissed, a note of panic in his voice.

Sirius took up the wand and cast a dim _Lumos,_ the meagre light more than enough to fill the small space. Regulus' face was even more haunted when the light fell on it just so. Sirius had to look away.

"You're such an idiot," Regulus said, shaking his head. He looked a mix between concerned and furious, and the latter was winning out. "Now you'll be in trouble and I'll be in even more!"

"Shut up," Sirius said, almost fondly. There was barely room to sit but he managed, his long legs having to stay slightly bent at the knee, whereas Regulus' shorter but no less coltish legs now stretched out flat, bare feet reaching the opposite wall. Their sides touched, but like their legs, nothing seemed to line up properly; they didn’t match.

"Why'd you come in here, anyway? I don't need you."

Sirius shrugged. No, family didn’t mean to him what it once had, but Regulus would always be his. There was a part of him that was still convinced Regulus wasn’t lost, that it wasn’t too late. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You and your good ideas." Now Regulus sounded fond, reminiscent. He laughed, a little weakly, and his hand sought and found Sirius' in the mire of shadows. Cool, slender fingers linked with Sirius'. Nothing was said.

"I'm meeting with them this weekend," Regulus whispered. His eyes, like a mirror, stared into Sirius' without wavering. His lip, however, trembled before he sucked it into his mouth determinedly.

"They won't take you. You're too young." Sirius had this on good authority. He'd needed to know how much time he had before it was too late.

"You're right that I won't be Marked, but—"

"If you go, you know all this ends." Sirius squeezed his hand. His words were casual, but inside he was breaking, sharp edges needing Regulus to round them, to stop the slicing from the inside out.

"Sirius…"

It was then that Sirius realised he wasn’t in danger of losing his brother; Regulus was already gone. His mind was made up. Sirius… Sirius wasn’t enough to keep him.

He wasn’t aware that he was crying until Regulus clambered into his lap. He'd never acquired the natural grace Sirius had, nor the strength of character. He'd always be an imperfect copy of an imperfect person. Regulus' hands cupped Sirius' cheeks, thumbs brushing away the tears with more gentleness than he'd ever shown himself.

"We could stay here," Regulus said. He wrapped his arms around Sirius' neck and buried his face in Sirius' shoulder, lips whispering against skin, sending messages that Sirius couldn’t bear to receive. "Forever, if we wanted. No one to bother us, no one to try to change us. Just you and me."

Regulus' lips, full and red and chapped, formed so alluringly around the lie. Sirius pulled him away by the hair to see those lips, to see if he could taste the lie as strongly as he could hear it, could _feel_ it.

Regulus opened like a flower to Sirius, like every other time. His mouth parted under Sirius', his back arching when Sirius pressed forward. Their mouths were spells as they cursed each other, as they begged each other stay. There was no tenderness in the kiss, though Sirius remembered it. There was no love, though Sirius felt it.

"Promise?" Sirius asked. He was earnest—he never wanted to leave Regulus. He wanted his _own_ Mark on his brother, his own brand so that Regulus would never forget to whom he belonged. The bites he made on Regulus' pale, blue-veined neck were too temporary for his liking. Regulus never gave enough.

"Promise."

Like all lies, even the ones most beautiful, most needed, Regulus' ended when the closet door opened the next morning. Bodies entangled in the claustrophobic space, there was no way to tell which limbs were Sirius' and which belonged to Regulus. Clothing sat in a heap in one corner of the closet. Regulus' body was covered in bruises—fingertips, teeth, lips, and the open face of Sirius' hand, all marking him.

They would fade, all of them, by the time Sirius had packed his things and left at the command of his horrified parents. Regulus' pale face was in an upstairs window; he swiped at tears with angry hands—but Sirius couldn’t look back to see what he left behind.

  


-the end-

  



End file.
